


procession of one

by CeruleanTactician



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Adopted Children, Backstory, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Child Death, Child Loss, Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I'm Sorry, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Missing Scene, Mother-Child Relationship, Motherhood, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Parent-Child Relationship, Pre-Canon, Pre-Undertale, Sad, Undertale Spoilers, Wakes & Funerals, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5557454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeruleanTactician/pseuds/CeruleanTactician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toriel buries a child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	procession of one

Grave digging is a time consuming process. There are no other graves in the underground; you think Asgore’s keeping the other children's bodies in that crypt. You don’t even know if it’s what Chara would've wanted. Preferred funeral methods never came up in conversation, even long after you realized that they would not be miraculously healed, but before talking became too painful for them. In retrospect, that was cowardly. They deserved to be put to rest in the way they wanted. They deserved better.

You know that you could use magic instead of a shovel, but you don’t allow yourself to. It was as much the process itself as it is a distraction from everything around you. There was only a bit of sunlight coming down on the spot you picked but it’s enough. You thought that Chara deserves this little piece of the place they came from.

(It’s only later when the flowers bloom. You’ll have no idea how they got there, but be happy about it. Some of Chara’s last words were about wanting to see those yellow flowers. You’ll wish that you could tell Chara that you think they’re nice too.)

You know about human funerals. You’ve never actually been to one- monster-human relations had already soured enough by the time you were born that going to one would be out of the question. But you know the process. Hole six feet deep. Body put in small box (so, so small). You know how this works.

It’s not the physical task that’s taking it’s toll on you, that’s for certain. It just doesn’t work like that. The actual process is easy. Simple. So why does it feel like you’ve been doing this for days? Why do you feel like your limbs will stop moving at any point? That you will just stop and never start again?

You got the shovel from Asgore’s garden supplies, it was one of the many things you took when you left that place. (the place where your son was born, the place where a family was raised) You’d taken your books and clothes and- and a small box. Getting everything back to the ruins in a clandestine manner was fairly easy, you were the Queen after all. No one could’ve stopped you. No one tried. The people didn’t even seem to notice you as you walked passed- or maybe that was the other way around. Either way, no one followed you to this place, this place only illuminated by a patch of sunlight.

Movements take hours and seconds. You take the coffin and lower it into the grave. Then, more shoveling. They are robotic, unfeeling movements. You do not grasp time passing until the whole is filled up. You put the shovel down. You stand at the edge of the grave.

(You think about leaving a marker- a gravestone, as the humans called it, but you think it’s unnecessary. You will be the only one visiting this place.)

You also know that words are generally said at funerals. Speeches, of some sort, given by the loved ones of the deceased. Religious texts are read too, but you don’t know which of the human religions Chara followed, if any. You don’t remember enough about any of them to give something general, either. Well. You’re the only one here, so it doesn’t matter anyways.

You cannot take your eyes off the grave, highlighted by the sun.

You hadn’t even realized that you were crying when you fell you your knees. Chara. Oh, Chara. You think about the way the sickness ravaged their tiny, fragile, human body until they could no longer stand, until they could barely breathe, barely communicate, until they could no longer keep their own heart beating. It was not a pretty illness. They got sick after every meal, and soon after every drink. They bleed everywhere. They got horrible rashes all over their hands and face. They were soon too weak to leave bed, skin so pale it was shocking. Your child hadn’t deserved it. Your child did not deserve this.

You think about how you and everyone in the castle, everyone across the kingdom could barely rest, every day and night, scouring every book, every ancient memory, everything for anything that could help Chara. Towards the end, you stopped sleeping and spent every moment by their bedside reading ancient cursedly outdated human medicine books. You remember Chara telling you that they were worried about you, and that you should rest more. As if they weren’t the one dying. You remember Chara telling you that it was too late for them, this sad resignation in their eyes. A look that never belonged in the eyes of a child.

You think about the wounds all over Asriel as he clutched his sibling’s lifeless body, almost like it was a doll. He was bruised and bleeding, and it was only a few moments before he turned to dust in front of your eyes. You remember seeing the tears streaming down his face. You cannot ever hope to forget how scared he looked.

You sit in that small, sunlit room, and you sob.

You will never see your children again.

You will never see Asriel’s embarrassed smile again, the one he smiled when Chara complimented him.

You will never read with Chara by the fireplace again, comfortable in mutual silence.

You will never tuck them in at night again. 

You will never watch Chara knit again, deliberate and careful, lost in the motions.

You will never walk with Asriel through the garden again, talking about thing that didn’t matter.

You will never have family dinner again, joking and smiling, with gentle laughter.

The pain is a weight on you, pinning you to the ground. You are in so much pain. It can't be real. The fact that the future you once had could be ripped away leaving you with this? With nothing?

(There is warm sunlight streaming down from the same place where Chara once fell, but you feel colder than you’ve ever felt before.)

You are neither Queen nor mother now. Just a sad old lady, alone in the Ruins.

You stay there, at your child’s grave, for longer than you know.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, Toriel. Poor old goat woman. Please tell me what you thought in the comments!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Ask them](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5750941) by [somnivagrantTraviatus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somnivagrantTraviatus/pseuds/somnivagrantTraviatus)




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